Future NASA missions to explore Mars, the Moon, and the outer planets, are expected to require rechargeable batteries that can operate over a wide temperature range (−60° C. to +60° C.) to satisfy the requirements of various applications, including landers, rovers, and penetrators. Some future applications typically may require high specific energy batteries that can operate at very low temperatures, while still providing adequate performance and stability at higher temperatures. In addition, many of these applications envisioned by the Exploration Systems Research and Technology (ESRT) program of NASA will require improved safety, due to their use by humans. The performance of currently known state-of-art lithium-ion systems is severely limited at temperatures below −40° C. and above +30° C. The limited performance at very low temperatures is believed to be due to poor electrolyte conductivity, poor lithium intercalation kinetics over the electrode surface layers, and poor ionic diffusion in the electrode bulk.